What the Murder of Iraqi Jews in 1941 Tells us About the Middle East Today
Many real and potential collaborators were spread throughout Arab countries. Most ominously, the Nazi Einsatzgruppe that would have followed Rommel into Egypt in 1942 planned to have local Arabs do most of the dirty work. Local collaborators in Europe had demonstrated an enthusiasm for slaughtering Jews that sometimes even shocked the Nazis, and there is every reason to think that this would have been the case in the Middle East. Indeed, the sheer bestiality of the Farhud (like the Hebron massacre of 1929), replete with senseless mutilation, shows that deep-seated hatreds were being played out, not simply to kill but to degrade Jews in the act of killing and in death itself. This can only be attributed to religion.
Numerous Nazis found shelter in the Middle East, especially Egypt and Syria, after the war, as well as employment in their security services and propaganda ministries. Some even converted to Islam, finding in it the fullest expression of their fascism. In this sense Nazism played a direct role in shaping the modern Middle East.
Three elements drew Arab and Muslim leaders to the Nazis. First was Muslim theological antisemitism, which meshed well with Nazi racist antisemitism. Muslims needed no lessons regarding Jew hatred. The Koran and other Islamic sources are filled with verses reviling Jews as filthy schemers and betrayers of the prophet and calling for their mistreatment and murder. The lengthy history of pogroms against Jews in the Arab and Muslim worlds shows these theological exhortations were taken seriously. New, however, was the language of Jews as vermin and the fantasy of a single global Jewish conspiracy. Treatment of Jews in Germany also emboldened Muslim anti-Semites who were encouraged to prepare their own attacks.
In the second place was local hatred of British and French imperialism, which for most Muslims had theological dimensions, since it entailed being ruled by infidels. Finally, there were local concepts of nationalism, which outside of Egypt were still mostly held by ambitious intellectuals, civic notables, and military officers. The ultimate prize of self-determination was power over others. All three elements remain in play today, sometimes masquerading as one another.
The Farhud shows that, despite Western desires, in the Middle East religion and politics have always inextricably linked. As the veneer of a secular, democratic “Arab Spring” peels it is revealing widespread support for theocracy in both Egypt and Tunisia. With elections in the fall, the Muslim Brotherhood will likely have a parliamentary majority and the opportunity to implement its project of Islamifying Egypt and repudiating the treaty with Israel. Theological antisemitism, fundamental and undisguised in the Muslim Brotherhood and its offshoot Hamas, as well as in Iran and its offshoot Hezbollah, will become a basic part of the Egyptian political program. The events of the Farhud show that antisemitism must be taken seriously. Rising persecution of Christians from Egypt to Pakistan shows that no one is immune to theological hatred.
But another veneer is peeling, that of the nation-state itself. The American encounter with Iraq precipitated internecine warfare that showed how ethnic and religious ties are far stronger than loyalties to invented nation-states. Berbers and others are in rebellion against Gaddafi’s “Libya,” while Sunnis, Kurds, and others battle the minority Alawite Assad regime in Syria. Saudi forces occupy Bahrain to suppress the Iranian backed Shiite uprising. Bedouin tribes in Jordan rail against the Hashemite king over the issue of the Palestinians. Many Middle Eastern states survive today only because the spoils reaped by minorities controlling the whole is greater than that of the parts. Ideologies of hatred and conspiracy are key tools of control. This is not nationalism but another form of warfare.
Finally, there is the matter of “Islamo-fascism.” There are indisputable points of contact between Islam and Nazism, but whether or not these constituted a discernable synthesis, perhaps in the person of the mufti, is a question for historians. But dismissing such observations as “Islamophobic” is both an act of historical denial and a way to label critics of modern Islamist movements as haters. This defers a true reckoning, especially in the Middle East itself. The act of remembering demands better.
Perhaps the commonality lies in a collectivist drive wherein control is exerted by a few over the masses.
Collectivism is at the heart of Nazism, Fascism, Islamisim, socialism, communism, they all come out of the same stable.
Left and right are hard to define terms and probably unhelpful in trying to reach a clear understanding, but if collective control and responsibility is left wing, and individual control and responsibility is right wing, then all the above isms come from the same left wing stable.
This is actually established if one examines how the ideologies came about (eg, Mussolini came from a socialist line of thinking and was simply trying to improve it as he saw fit.)
Very perceptive comment.
You are mistaken that the association of the Arabs and Nazis came late!
It arose almost as soon as Hitler came to power.
As shown in the books Nazi Palestine and Palestine Betrayed (among others), it came early and was pervasive. The Arabs found a kindred spirit in Hitler and a new q’ran in Mein Kampf (and still do).
When one reads details of events in the 30′s with respect to the Middle East the parallels to today are stunning and frightening.
yesjb,
Well put.There has NEVER even been six degrees of separation between the two.In fact, Islamic Jew hatred predated Nazi Jew hatred.
It is impossible to understand Islamic jihad without understanding their Nazi roots-from the Koran!!
I wrote my dissertation on Middle East radicalism. I can sum it (700 pgs) up in one short sentence: “The war on terror will be won when Mein Kampf is no longer for sale on the streets of Jordan”
Miriam, Are you implying that Mein Kampf is an essential western vindication of the Q’ran?
I would say, when neither Mein Kampf nor the Qur’an are on sale in the streets anywhere in the Middle East.
The two are one and the same.
It would not be too much of a stretch to say that Haj Amin al-Husseini was Hitler’s inspiration for the Holocaust.
My understanding is that the Arab translation of “Mein Kampf” is still the second-best selling book in Arabic countries today, outsold only by the Quran. Miriam is absolutely correct: “The war on terror will be won when Mein Kampf is no longer for sale on the streets of Jordan” and the rest of the Arabic world.
“But do historical data show a widespread grassroots Arab desire to exterminate Middle Eastern Jews?”
Well, let’s just say that groups like the Muslim Brotherhood and al Qaeda proves that they don’t like them too much even today. Ever since World War II (as in Iraq) and shortly after World War II (with the first arab war against a newly created Israel), Middle Eastern Muslims have never had a great “love” for the Jews. Heck, they didn’t even tolerate them. Unfortunately, not much has changed since then. The only reason Israel exists today is because they have the military power TO exist. But there will come a day, probably when Iran gets a nuclear weapon, when the Muslims in the Middle East will want to totally eradicate this “thorn” in their side and try to literally blow Israel off the map in one nuclear flash.
And what are we doing about it? What is Obama doing about it? Not much. He’s letting Iran get its nuclear bomb and he is constantly demanding concessions from Israel but never, ever, from the arabs. Time is almost running out for Israel and its only hope is that in 2012 the United States gets a conservative president who will stand by its side again. Because, if we get four more years of Obama, Israel will be finished.
I really don’t get why Jews in America vote for their enemy. Do they feel it is better to have the US in disarray and no one to gang up on them or are they just self loathing and want to watch Israel disappear before their eyes? Keep voting Dem and you get a front row seat.
Excellent article touching on so many important strands that define the modern Middle East.
Any discussion of it will be Verboten by liberal Jews, mainstream journalists and Yale University’s re-constituted Department of Anti-Semitism.
The article is correct to acknowledge the 2500 year history of Arab and Jew living side-by-side–even after the rise of Islam (after all they shared a common religious and cultural heritage). But in the late 19th century, and early 20th century, the West (most predominated the Brits) began economic escapades in Iraq–most notably resulting in military adventure where Winston Churchill even approve the use of poison gas on the Kurds. The Brits also made financial alliances with some of the Jewish population which started the rift between them and the Arabs. This fact made certain Arab nationalists in charge turn to Hitler as a logical extension.
tadcf said:{But in the late 19th century, and early 20th century, the West (most predominated the Brits) began economic escapades in Iraq–most notably resulting in military adventure where Winston Churchill even approve the use of poison gas on the Kurds.}
care to back up that claim ….
tadcf: Please do not try to cover up the 2500 year history of Muslims forcing Jews to live as second-class people, tolerated only as long as they accepted inferior, exploited status.
That’s 1,400 years of history since Islam was founded in the 7th century. But you’re correct that according to Islamic law the people of the book, i.e. Jews and Christians, can have a status of dhimmis, or “protected” religious minorities (i.e. allowed to live and to warship according to their own religion within pretty serious limitations), if they agree to pay the jizya, a special tax, and accept humiliating customs to express their subjugation to Muslims. The other alternatives are conversion to Islam or death, although occasionally they were given also the option to leave the country.
The degree the dhimma laws were implemented depended on the ruler, the time and the place. At certain times and places there were benevolent rulers who allowed Jews and Christians relative prosperity and accomplishment. At others there were ultra-zealous rulers who demanded they all converts.
At the early 20th century a secularization process, influenced by Western ideas, began in certain parts of the Middle East that allowed Jews and Christians in certain places to have equal rights and even rise to positions of power, but that was soon replaced with militant Arab ultra-nationalism.
If the Muslim Brotherhood and other groups take power in their various nations and institute some kind of Islamo-fascist systems, then you can be sure that the Middle East will explode into total war and national suicide just like Germany did. It took the most destructive war in human history and millions of deaths to convince the Germans to abandon their hatreds and act like a civilized nation. I wish that it would not take a similar event to pacify the Middle East, but unfortunately it may come to that. Islamic nationalism is every bit as fanatical and suicidal as Nazism was, and every bit as entrenched in the culture.
That a fusion of Islam and Nazism exists is impossible to deny if you look, for instance, on how Islamic Jew-hatred and European antisemitic conspiracy theories are interwoven in Hamas covenant.
For instance, article 7 quotes the now infamous genocidal hadith from Sahih Bukhari and Sahih Muslim:
This is a purely Islamic source of genocidal Jew-hatred. But other parts of the charter quote the Russian czarist antisemitic tract “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion”, which was a major influence on the Nazis. The “Protocols” accuses the Jews of an old age conspiracy to take over the world. According to it the Jews were behind every war and every revolution ever, and the Jews also invented capitalism, socialism, and the ideas of equality and human rights as tools for the global rule conspiracy. BTW, the purpose of the “Protocols” was to try and perevent a popular uprising against the czar and the aristocracy in Russia by claiming all these revolutionary ideas are really just instruments in the hands of evil Jews, and therefore when the masses hear all these nonsense about equality, democracy and human rights they should stand firm against them and support the rule of the czar and the priviliges of the aristocracy because they and the papacy are the only obstacles standing in the way of the evil Jews to acheive world domination.
The Nazis adopted and expanded the themes in the “Protocols”. And portions of Hamas covenant include ideas identical to the Nazi propaganda, except Germany is replaced with the Islamic Caliphate the Jews are accused of destroying. For instance in article 22:
This is immediately followed by a “supporting” quote from Muslim scriptures:
Article 32 explicitly mentions the “Protocols” as their source of “information”:
Though according to Ion Mihai Pacepa the “Protocols” was disseminated in the Middle East also by the Soviets, but that was in a later period. These conspiracy theories fused with Islamic Jew-hatred were first disseminated throughout the Middle East by Amin al-Husseini, the mufti of Jerusalem, through a German radio station that broadcasted his sermons to the Middle East for 5 years.
The link to the translation of Hamas Covenant on Yale’s website:
http://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/hamas.asp
More information on the subject of Islamism and Nazism can be read in the wesbite of German scholar Matthias Küntzel who reasearched it and also published a book on the subjcet.
http://www.matthiaskuentzel.de/contents/kategorie/32/?lang=en
the disinformation in Protocols is not only loved and believed by Muslims- the oxymoronically named “Truthers” and other conspiracy wackos hold these same ideas of Jewish media and alleged world domination and manipulations of money and power,secret cabals etc. The only difference between their beliefs is one holds to them for religion reason. The other? who knows? deep rooted anti Semitism? distrust of establishment? Whatever the reason, the Muslim fantasy being promoted (as if true) has given them much company and approval- a safer space to voice these perverse accusations on JEWS- A facile word game called anti-ISrael or anti-Zionist to hide behind, while in private, or Arabic the word used is JEWS. I never dreamed in my lifetime I would see Nazi fascist ideas so popular, but here we are- I am now fully able to answer the question I always had- How did Hitler convince people of this madness?
I agree. Can you believe we are actually witnessing this today? How are sane people so blind as to be insane?
Most Arab Jews in Israel vote for right wing parties such as the Likud. The left wing (or whatever is left of it) draws its support mainly from European Jews. There is a very obvious reason for this: The Arab Jews, know the Arab Muslims. They understand their language, they have amongst them people who experienced living as a minority among the Muslims.
Russian Jews are the exception. At my monthly Moledet meetings, (a party right of Likud) there were so many Russians that they had to have a translator. I went to many right-wing rallies in Tel Aviv and most were North American immigrants, Russians and religious European Israelis.
daniel teeboom,
There is no such thing as “Arab Jews”. We are different people, first to last. Half of my family is from Iraq, and we where always Jews, never Arabs.
Why limit the analysis to 1941?
A much more comprehensive analysis of Islamic terror can be observed between the time periods of the years 800 to 3:38pm, Monday, June 27, 2011